\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThird!\u201d I yelled.<\/p>\n
My eight-year-old daughter was riding shotgun. She didn\u2019t miss a beat. She leaned over and confidently moved us into third gear. All the while grinning from ear to ear.<\/p>\n
And why not?<\/p>\n
She\u2019d mastered a skill that evades her automatic-licence-only mother.<\/p>\n
(I often yell \u201cthird\u201d to Liz, but she doesn\u2019t dare touch the gearstick.)<\/p>\n
What a clutch.<\/p>\n
My Toyota V8 ute has woolly seat covers, an ashtray, and a custom-fitted and totally-offensive train horn. (The Tesla famously has a fart button that makes passengers laugh. My ute\u2019s horn makes people on the street fart.) Lucky is chained up in the back, wind in her chops, as we roar into third gear.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s little wonder my boys are already fighting over who inherits it when I run out of diesel.<\/p>\n
Yet at the peak of the oil crisis it was costing me $310 to fill the thing. And with the fuel excise about to snap back I’ve started asking myself:<\/p>\n
Is it time to go electric?<\/p>\n
My wife recently bought an EV and she loves it. I find it stressful. It\u2019s like she\u2019s driving with me.<\/p>\n
Too close to the lines? Ding!<\/p>\n
Eyes off the road? Ding!<\/p>\n
All it\u2019s missing is, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have done it that way\u201d.<\/p>\n
An ABC article called the Labor government\u2019s EV leasing scheme \u201can amazing secret deal\u201d. And that\u2019s exactly why it\u2019s blown out tenfold, costing taxpayers $1.4 billion this year alone.<\/p>\n
The government says it can save you $5,000 a year.<\/p>\n
Sweet tax break!*<\/p>\n
*Terms and conditions apply. Including the bit where your EV ends up worth half what you paid for it at the end of the lease.<\/em><\/p>\n Ding! Ding! Ding!<\/p>\n But it\u2019s getting worse.<\/p>\n First, because all those amazing secret deals<\/em> are leased and most will be dumped on the market in three to five years.<\/p>\n Second, because buying an EV is like buying a phone. (Case in point: I tried to trade in my perfectly functional but old iPhone 13 mini recently. The guy offered me a used K-Pop Demon Hunters<\/em> phone case and $80 cash.)<\/p>\n In other words:<\/p>\n The first owner gets the tax break. The second owner gets the bargain.<\/p>\n Honk!<\/em><\/p>\n Tread Your Own Path!<\/em><\/p>\n You\u2019re a Loser, Barefoot <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n The Broken-Hearted Mum<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Leave Your Husband. Now. Don\u2019t Delay.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n You\u2019re a Loser, Barefoot<\/strong><\/p>\n Scott<\/em><\/p>\n Calling SpaceX \u201cthe most overvalued piece of junk going around\u201d shows that you have no idea about AI and the massive disruptions it\u2019s about to make (including to the financial advice industry). The stock is up 50% in the last five days. FIFTY PERCENT! I bet you wish your boring index fund had more than a 0.06% stake? The world\u2019s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, is one of its biggest backers. Maybe you should listen to her, you loser.<\/em><\/p>\n Dean<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hi Dean,<\/p>\n You\u2019re right.<\/p>\n Making 50% in two days is seriously get-rich-quick stuff.<\/p>\n You\u2019re also wrong.<\/p>\n I\u2019m perfectly comfortable with my boring 0.06% stake through my index funds.<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n Because I\u2019ve been investing for three decades, and I don\u2019t think in two-day time frames.<\/p>\n I think in decades.<\/p>\n You’re right, I’m clearly not in Gina Rinehart’s league. But then again, my Daddy didn’t leave me a chunk of the Pilbara.<\/p>\n My index funds give me a slice of the earnings from thousands of businesses around the world. A slow and steady climb that compounds over time, not overnight.<\/p>\n And I\u2019ve made peace with the fact that there will always be someone getting richer quicker than me:<\/p>\n That stops me from trading with my ego.<\/p>\n Now, on AI. I think AI is going to change the world. As did the internet. The internet transformed how we work, communicate, shop, travel and date. Yet most of the dot-com darlings that promised to change the world ended up broke.<\/p>\n A great technology doesn\u2019t automatically make a great investment.<\/p>\n The current excitement around AI reminds me of every investing mania I\u2019ve lived through. People stop talking about earnings. They stop talking about what a business is worth. And they start talking about the share price. Or, in your case, how much it went up in the last five days. <\/p>\n Maybe SpaceX will prove me wrong.<\/p>\n Yet if there\u2019s one thing I’ve learned after thirty years of investing, it\u2019s this:<\/p>\n When everybody is talking about how much money they\u2019re making, it\u2019s usually time for me to get interested in something boring.<\/p>\n Boring wins.<\/p>\n The Broken-Hearted Mum<\/strong><\/p>\n Hey Scott,<\/em><\/p>\n I am a broken-hearted mum right now. After a wonderful Mother\u2019s Day weekend with both my sons, my older son has now ghosted me. No warning. No explanation. When I finally got a response, he told me he\u2019d started seeing a psychologist who had helped him uncover suppressed emotions from his childhood. He says he can\u2019t talk to me without screaming. I am at a loss. He had a good childhood. There was no abuse (okay, I yelled when chores didn\u2019t get done and he got smacked when naughty) and no neglect (our food bill halved when he left home). Yet somehow I seem to have been cast as the villain of his story. My question is this: my son is 24, a sometimes full-time uni student, and works casually pushing trolleys at a supermarket. We still have him on our health insurance, pay for his NRMA roadside assist and even cover his Netflix. Is it time to cut the cord?<\/em><\/p>\n Sad Mum<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hello Sad Mum,<\/p>\n Before I answer this, a disclaimer: I am not a family therapist. My kids are still young enough that I can settle most disputes by threatening to turn off the Octonauts.<\/p>\n However, you didn\u2019t ask me why your son is angry. You asked whether to cut him off financially.<\/p>\n And I can answer that one:<\/p>\n Hell, no.<\/p>\n If you cancel the insurance and Netflix today, he won\u2019t suddenly remember that you loved him. He\u2019ll see it as punishment, and you\u2019ll have given him one more reason to stay away.<\/p>\n You\u2019re heartbroken. You love your son. You want him back in your life. Money has got nothing to do with it. Parents and kids often remember the same childhood very differently. Sometimes one of them is wrong. Sometimes neither of them is.<\/p>\n What matters right now is keeping the door open long enough to see your son walk back through it.<\/p>\n Leave Your Husband. Now. Don\u2019t Delay.<\/strong><\/p>\n Scott,<\/em><\/p>\n Reading your question last week about Wendy hit home (\u201cI live with a man I no longer love, but stay because of the money I\u2019d have to pay him out\u201d). I did the same thing for over 15 years. Finally, I left. Somewhere along the way I had become the money-bags and a parent to an infant adult rather than a partner. The injustice is the hardest part. Everything you worked for, sacrificed and provided will be split with someone who doesn\u2019t care. It feels completely unfair. And it is. But here\u2019s what I know from the other side.<\/em><\/p>\n I was Wendy two years ago. In denial about the settlement figure. Worried I wouldn\u2019t get through it. So I delayed. It cost me nearly $100,000 more. Bloody property prices! Wendy, don\u2019t delay. The settlement only gets worse the longer you wait. The house gets paid down, your super increases, the asset pool grows. They\u2019ll still get their 50%, just of a bigger number. Take the leap. It will be hard. But you can do hard. You\u2019ve been doing it every day of your relationship. You just didn\u2019t see it at the time.<\/em><\/p>\n Hardworking Woman<\/em><\/p>\n Amen to that.<\/p>\n See you all next week.<\/p>\n Scott.<\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThird!\u201d I yelled. My eight-year-old daughter was riding shotgun. She didn\u2019t miss a beat. She leaned over and confidently moved us into third gear. All the while grinning from ear to ear. And why not? She\u2019d mastered a skill that evades her automatic-licence-only mother. (I often yell \u201cthird\u201d to Liz, but she doesn\u2019t dare touch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7025168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[10055,11040],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7027359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-barefoot","tag-billionaire"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nYour Questions & Answers<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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